Rules Queries and Clarifications

So infantry moving between 2 nodes that are next to each other and connected by a road would take 3.5 days no matter the quality of the road (if there are no rivers to cross of course)? These three quoted sentences make it difficult for me understand what the speed of movement is.

The map scale is expressed in terms of how long it takes a body of troops to move between two nodes along a road and this time period is a half-week (3.5 days)

Infantry moving along a Good road may move three nodes. Infantry moving along a Poor road may move two.

Distance between nodes and road quality becomes the defining function of how easy or difficult it is to pass through a region.

Do you mean the amount of nodes between your starting node and target node is the defining function? I thought the distance between nodes on the map doesn't matter.

Just to clarify this for my stubborn brain - we would have to send in a turn in the first 4 days of the week and then another one in the last 3, right?

This is my first kriegsspiel so I hope you'll excuse my ineptitude when it comes to understanding rules.  I was told that real men don't read instructions.

Each turn is half a week.

Infantry/foot artillery can move 3 nodes along a good road in a turn, or two nodes along a poor road.

So a poor road is 50% slower than a good one.

Ignore the sentence:

The map scale is expressed in terms of how long it takes a body of troops to move between two nodes along a road and this time period is a half-week (3.5 days)

As that is misleading. I will correct that and clarify it. I meant to write:

The map scale is expressed in terms of how long it takes a body of troops to move between nodes along a road and this time period is a half-week (3.5 days). In this time a body of troops will move further along good roads than along poor.

If you look at the Southern Germany map in the Alps you'll see how close together nodes are there, making negotiation of the Alpine passes extremely slow.

Yes, one set of march orders in the fist half of a week and a second set in the second half. Of course if your orders are "march on Paris by the shortest route" I'll just keep moving your troops until they either hit an enemy or smell garlic.

Please note I am still juggling the system here and may well alter it. I want simplicity but also realistic rates of movement. I will probably conduct a test session with a couple of players as I haven't yet decided if this set of move rates vs map space will explode in my face with chaos or not!

P.S. Had a fruitful rules scribbling session today and an extended set is up. Still going through them and some stuff is very raw. I am also keeping the exact mechanics of some processes hidden so I can make them rubbery in execution if needed The rules in that sense are really not rules (like you'd see them laid out in black and white for both sides to see in an old Avalon Hill hex game) but information about what can happen and how I adjudicate it.

Some rule and mechanism details will only be given in each sides private forum.

Couple of thoughts Martin:

1.2 Opposing forces will never collide on a transit link, only at nodes

A couple of things need to be noted for this. 1/. hostile forces can't transit across each other. 2/. You can, in fact, have force 1 moving A to B, and force 2 moving B to A. To make the rule true you will need to determine a method for which force 'moves first' and thereby determines which node the fight happens at.

It might be better to word as: forces only exist at nodes. All battles will occur at nodes. If two opposing forces march into each other (a method) will be used to determine which node the battle occurs at.

5.1 Supply Lines.
There's usually a richness of nodes to bypass a blockade in a LOC if you can go infinitely far. You may want to have a length limit to LOC

5.3 Replacements
While replacements are blocked from reinforcing, do they grow in a pool? Is there attrition? Or once you are back in supply do they surge into your units?

5.4 Battles
Something about fortress garrison limits? You could (possibly) elect to park your multicorp army in a fortress and be unable to be attacked, and rather difficult to contain.

1.2 Opposing forces will never collide on a transit link, only at nodes

A couple of things need to be noted for this. 1/. hostile forces can't transit across each other. 2/. You can, in fact, have force 1 moving A to B, and force 2 moving B to A. To make the rule true you will need to determine a method for which force 'moves first' and thereby determines which node the fight happens at.

It might be better to word as: forces only exist at nodes. All battles will occur at nodes. If two opposing forces march into each other (a method) will be used to determine which node the battle occurs at.

You are quite correct, that's the intention. I had made the assumption it was self-evident that opposing forces can't swap positions along the same transit link so I omitted to mention it.

There will be a force that moves first and that will be the one whose orders I receive first. There was a fair bit of "hanging back" in issuing orders in the Peninsular campaign since there was a slight benefit to do so. This time around the opposite will be true, especially for an attacking army.

I'll clarify this when I add more rules.

5.1 Supply Lines.
There's usually a richness of nodes to bypass a blockade in a LOC if you can go infinitely far. You may want to have a length limit to LOC

Yes, you are again correct. I didn't make it clear that a LoCS is fixed along the route by which an army has advanced, or the shortest route cutting off any strange angles the advance has created, or is fixed running to the rear of a defensively postured force to an established fortress so cutting it will be easy and re-opening it will require the obstruction to be removed by force.

5.3 Replacements
While replacements are blocked from reinforcing, do they grow in a pool? Is there attrition? Or once you are back in supply do they surge into your units?

Not decided yet. I want to always go for the simplest and easiest solution. Still chewing this one over but replacements will probably halt at the closest fortress to the break in the LoCS until its restored, then march forwards.

5.4 Battles
Something about fortress garrison limits? You could (possibly) elect to park your multicorp army in a fortress and be unable to be attacked, and rather difficult to contain.

Unlike the Peninsular game I intend to very much abstract and mostly ignore garrisons and sieges this time around. The 1813 campaign was one of decisive field battles and unlike in Spain and Portugal the various garrisons and those forces set aside to contain them pretty much fell into their own limbo - a quite separate war of waiting. Due to the geography of the region with several major rivers running S to N or SE to NW with a fairly good transverse road net, most fortresses covered major river crossings and an advancing army seemed able to bypass these with some ease. Notice that a garrison cannot initiate action, once its in, its in for good. Your garrison is effectively lost unless you get back there to relieve it and a fortress merely slows down and inconveniences an advancing enemy. If a player puts a big army into a fortress he will lose the campaign.

I am going to change the road capacity rules from 2 corps on a good road and 1 on a poor one to 10 divisions on a good road and 5 on a poor one.

A corps HQ counts as a division (corps artillery and other transport), then add 1 for each infantry and cavalry division in the corps.

Mike, you ought to ask Martin is you could have rules to accommodate those "pies" you use to gather intelligence. Here is your chance to redefine the language!

Sounds like a good change martin.

It'll take a minute or two extra each move to work out road capacities but as we have corps of greatly varying strength I thought it was fairer. It also means a corps commander can push forwards a division as an advanced guard or screen and still allow a friendly corps to pass. If the values of 10 and 5 prove to be off I will adjust.

Just to clarify - as we get close to the first turns issuing of orders the turn structure goes like this:

1) I will issue a general report of known enemy positions, etc at the start of the turn which covers what you have encountered in the previous few days. The results and repercussions of battles or manoeuvring to refuse battle will be given here as might some snippets on the wider politics of the region. From the basis of this news the two sides will discuss operations over the coming few days (i.e. the turn ahead).

2) Discussion and planning phase.

3) C-in-Cs or sub-commanders of armies issue orders to their subordinates. This is done by open communications on the private forums.

4) Each corps commander issues specific concise orders of how and where his corps is to move and act. Players will please send these orders to me via a forum private message. Importantly and different to the previous campaign I will put these orders into action in the sequence I receive them. Generals may wish to discuss or plan a march sequence after they get their general orders to move from the C-in-C but before they issue orders to their men to march.

5) There will be an optional phase next for players to refuse battle and retire or press forward to give battle when opposing forces come into contact. I will not wargame out the contact of screens or minor forces at the brigade level.

6) Battles are resolved in the sequence they occur as a result of marches received by the umpire. The effect of an earlier battle may override the opportunity for a "later" battle to take place.

Return to #1.

5.5.1 Marching to the Sound of the Guns

A force may not march to the sound of the guns along a transit link that has already reached its traffic capacity that turn.



-Can a unit that consumed road capacity that turn march back down a road?
i.e. units 1-5 are at A and move to B along a poor road.
unit 6, also at A, is attacked. Can any of units 1-5 retrograde on their march to help their friend?

Yes, as the traffic "tail" is effectively that forces own troops, those units in rear of their column. After 5 divisions of force 1 have moved from A to B, a division of force 2 cannot also use the A to B road as the tail end of 1's columns still block the road and are either deploying for battle at B or moving into encampments. However a force's own troops do not block themselves.

(well, history tells us in some cases they do but I am keeping this deliberately simple)

As a general note, if you ask me a question about something in the campaign and you get no answer, it is because your question is answered in the rules - as a suggestion, read the rules again before asking me questions!

Thanks all.

Having reviewed the encounter at Naumberg I feel it is fair to allow Napoleon the option of pressing on to Leutzen by 4th May. Otherwise any spoiling attack by a minor force can be used to halt a much stronger force. This does not seem correct.

What I will do is implement a rule that allows a force that has won an easy victory (where the ground was hardly contested or the force disparity was very great) to advance one more node.

If this would push it beyond its march allowance, including river crossing delays, the move is not possible.

Any such move, regardless of how much marching has been done beforehand, will fatigue all the forces that make the march.

This will always be an optional march for the winner of a battle.

Note that a smaller force that contends ground in a determined way can thereby be used to buy time and halt a stronger enemy, though at the risk of its own destruction. Such actions were occasional features of Napoleonic warfare and this rule covers these and similar events.

I am going to add a rule that calls these extra marches "Exploit Moves".

Forgive me as I write the rules as we go in some cases - events are being thrown up by the game that I had not anticipated.

Since the battles over the weekend I have:

A) Converted all the SoW Brigades back into SoW Divisions and added a brigade commander below each division commander. The divisions still only have 1 brigade in but now most also have a battery. This still usually leaves a battery or two at corps level and it means I can quickly add brigades to a division if we have disparate force sizes. Most corps' cavalry "divisions" will now have horse artillery directly attached as well.

Example:

Side A has a corps of 4 divisions (each 1 brigade and 1 battery) - it is given 4 players to command it like this (numbers are players):

1) Corps
Div
Brigade
Battery

2) Div
Brigade
Battery

3) Div
Brigade
Battery

4) Div
Brigade
Battery

Side B has a corps of 3 divisions defending plus a corps of 4 divisions marching to the sound of the guns. I make 2 of the divisions in the first corps into 1 and pair up the 4 divisions in the second corps - side B is also given 4 players to command it, like this:

1) Corps
Div
Brigade
Battery

2) Div
Brigade
Brigade
Battery
Battery

3) Corps
Div
Brigade
Brigade
Battery
Battery

4) Div
Brigade
Brigade
Battery
Battery

Extra players on either side can still take a single brigade as usual.

Unless players sneakily expand the OOB in the staging room there is now no way Side A's players can see the allocation of players in the staging room and deduce there is another corps coming on.

B) The acute shortage of French artillery draft horses in l'Armee d'Elbe has been remedied! At least we discovered this annoying feature of SoW in a battle where it wasn't critical - the Prussians declined combat based on the numbers of French flags they could see arriving - the fact they had no guns up yet wasn't important!

Kevin - I see no reason to keep the unlimbered artillery classes if this is how the game handles them. They are useless and misleading. We should delete them so idiots like me don't make this mistake again.

C) Prince Eugene being in character has caused some replacement men to arrive at the Armee d'Elbe.

D) Yorck and his division commanders being naughty and not attacking Ascherlseben when they really should have clobbered it very hard has caused a few Prussians to desert on their march back across the Saale. Lesson: Please try to roleplay what your generals actually would know, not what you as wargamers know.

I am updating the two sides master maps tonight pending one last decision from Napoleon then its on with the 5th to 8th May turn.

Mr. Digby wrote:D) Yorck and his division commanders being naughty and not attacking Ascherlseben when they really should have clobbered it very hard has caused a few Prussians to desert on their march back across the Saale. Lesson: Please try to roleplay what your generals actually would know, not what you as wargamers know.

This is a bit unfair to the Prussians.  I can tell you in good faith, until it was made moot by the MP numbers, that I intended to bring up the question during planning of "what if there are extra French arriving to support?".  Looking at the strategic map, it seemed likely that the French were planning a trap for Yorck.  Would we have been more aggressive?  Sure.  Would we have been reckless and not planned for the possibility of French reinforcements?  No.   

Also, the French did not aggressively attack us because they knew that all they needed to do to get the "wargame" win was "hold Ascherlseben".  In real life, this was an opportunity to destroy Yorck, which the French did not take because they "wargamed" it also.    

The French should not be rewarded for the same offense for which the Prussians are being punished.

Digby thanks for keepin it interesting and taking a look at things after and seeing what you can do to make it right in the reality of the outcome in real battle and not virtual. I had already thought that the French had made it all the way to Lueten after they swept us away.

I am sure that things will fall our way too, that is just how it goes so no sense to argue with the GM he is the god of this campaign.

Yorck and his division commanders being naughty and not attacking Ascherlseben when they really should have clobbered it very hard has caused a few Prussians to desert on their march back across the Saale. Lesson: Please try to roleplay what your generals actually would know, not what you as wargamers know.

Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, you are absolutely right that the Prussians knew that the French had large reinforcements just from the amount of players they had. On the other hand, I can't imagine anyone who would be able to ignore this knowledge and play as if they weren't going to get smashed by the vastly superior french reinforcements. Would you be able to do that?

Like Morsey is saying - thanks for spending extra time trying to make this campaign as good as it can be. We really appreciate your efforts.

Andrew, exactly.  And certainly no offense intended to Martin; I think we all realize he is herding cats here. 

Perhaps the simple solution is that a French staff officer deserted and alerted the Prussians to the trap.  Prince Eugene then didn't attack aggressively because he is Prince Eugene.   And not that both sides equally wargamed it.  No penalties or bonuses for either side.  No harm, no foul.   It was a very minor skirmish.  We learn and do better as the campaign goes forward.

Would you be able to do that?

I held my ground as a French division commander falling back slowly trying to defend the objective as long as I could and got thumped for my efforts, taking the majority of the casualties the French suffered in the battle. I think of the 1,200 men we lost 700 were from my division, and the battery with me was lost as well. I could have gamed the situation and suffered almost no losses. The Allied players even commented with some surprise why I didn't fall back more quickly.

If you had pushed a bit harder I am sure my division would have been crushed, my battalions were extremely shaky and several times I had squares break and retire, but you held back too much. I feel sure that hitting harder would have netted you greater results, not the disaster you may have been concerned about. The amount of cannonballs coming from Kevin's Hill was incredible. I saw little risk in punching hard, hurting VII Corps then darting back under cover of that wall of iron.

Also in mitigation, of course I am the umpire and in battles will do exactly as I'm told. Kevin will know that feeling from all the scenarios he writes then has to play in. Then again Morsey role-played quite well as well and held onto that forward defence line a long time when he could easily have retreated from the start. Mind you he was a Russian spy

I have always played about like this with campaigns. I did similar things in the Peninsular campaign but I feel it makes more impact if players are told the results of their actions. This time I thought I'd make it plain up front and hope to encourage the players. I do think little twists like this add depth and flavour. I am not adding or taking away whole divisions of troops in reward or punishment here, just giving little tweaks of a couple of hundred men, a gun or so, etc.

Well as you saw from the deployment of one of our divisions, we expected the french reinforcements to attack us from our back. That was the outcome we feared as it would've undoubtedly caused significantly more losses.

I personaly held back a bit myself but mainly because I was fighting an enemy on worse ground than him and with no cavalry or artillery support. My score kept dipping.

It seems odd that the two french divisions defending the town were not told about the reinforcements.

It seems odd that the two French divisions defending the town were not told about the reinforcements.

That was a result of the timing of the various orders received. I am playing these turns sequentially so the first player who sends me orders gets to move first. I've found already that this has helped speed up the tempo of the game which was one of my main criteria.

Also this was a march to the guns move, not an ordered map move, so the defence had no idea they had friends on the way until those friends told them via an in-game courier. I'll almost certainly be using this recipe in other battles so please be ready to turn a blind eye to facts you as a player may know but as a general may not.

There will be cases where a defender knows help is coming. There could even be cases when an attacker knows the defender has forces marching on. I think every battle will be different - and that's the #1 reason I like to run these campaigns.

Kevin - I see no reason to keep the unlimbered artillery classes if this is how the game handles them. They are useless and misleading. We should delete them so idiots like me don't make this mistake again.

No can do. These have to be kept for captured guns, otherwise the game will crash.

Ah, I see that now. Thanks.

How about the commanders of both sides (and perhaps also any commanders of reinforcements/secondary forces) make out a battle plan based on what they know of the scenario (ie before they meet in TS/lobby).

They have to conform to that plan until there is reasonable reason (contact/scouting) for them to change their movement. This might also include what they initially do with their cavalry or reserves.

Perhaps in-game objectives (maybe with bonuses) could be added to the scenarios such as having important bridges or towns, which could have a bearing on the strategic map??

I wonder if keeping the map we are using as a surprise would add a further exciting FOW aspect. A basic drawn map (but better for the familiar army/higher scouting ability) of the deployment area and basic terrain around, with more distant terrain such as important roads and rivers just sketched in.

Just a few ideas